


Perilously Liquored

by dynastat



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: Drunk Kara is an adorable boa constrictor in a button down, F/F, You know you can't resist
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-06
Updated: 2018-02-18
Packaged: 2019-03-14 15:09:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 16,935
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13592691
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dynastat/pseuds/dynastat
Summary: Kara had a rough day and she just wanted to let loose for once. Everybody else gets to drink, so why shouldn't she? When Alex gets sick of Kara gate-crashing her date, the Kryptonian ends up at the apartment of one Lena Luthor, where she divulges far more information than she ever intended. AKA: Kara Danvers and drunken confessions.





	1. Drunken Confessions

**Author's Note:**

> So it seems like I'm migrating over here since all of you at AO3 have been lovely so I thought I'd bring this with me because it's one thing I did that I quite like. Also, re-editing it is a nice break from the super depressing thing I'm actually writing.

"Come on tipsydoodle, let's get you home."

Alex wrapped her hand around Kara's upper arm and tried to haul her out of the booth but the Kryptonian relaxed into her seat instead, turning into a dead lump of a weight that Alex lacked the determination to move.

"Kara," she warned using her mom voice, and that was enough for the younger Danvers to huff in submission and start sliding out from behind the table.

Alex had been out for a nice drink with her girlfriend, just the two of them, on the first night in a week they both had off when Kara had come crashing into the bar and started hitting the Aldebaran rum without explanation.

After an hour of her sister happily third wheeling and with said sister now approaching hammered, Alex had reached the end of her tether. She loved Kara. She loved her like she loved few other people in the universe but that didn't mean she appreciated the alien playing gooseberry on her date.

Alex lead a stumbling Kara across the floor of the bar, having to use all her Kryptonian-wrangling skills to stop Kara from breaking anything or anyone. It was a lot harder for Supergirl to control her strength when she was drunk and it wasn't like she had much practice. The sisters weaved between tables, pool games and the odd dancing couple to make it to the door and, to her credit, Kara only nearly fell over twice. They burst outside into the brisk autumn air and Kara broke out of Alex's grip, spread her arms wide and twirled in a circle.

"Woooooo," the reporter hollered, drawing odd stares from passers-by.

Alex shook her head and looked to the heavens before grasping Kara firmly by the shoulders and holding her in place.

"I'm going to take you home, you're going to sleep this off and tomorrow I'm going to come round with four pints of ice cream and you're going to tell me what's going on, okay?"

"Awwww," Kara whined. "Bu' I don' wanna go home. I wanna have fuuuuuun."

"You can have fun tomorrow. Sober. When you won't accidentally cause any mayhem or destruction."

Kara pouted pitifully but Alex wouldn't budge, instead flagging down a cab and dragging her sister over to the car. She yanked the door open and loaded Kara in first before starting to clamber in after her.

"Wha' you doin'?" Kara asked, confusion written across her features.

"I'm taking you home," Alex explained slowly for the third time, like Kara was an especially dim elementary schooler.

"Nooooo," Kara groaned. "Go be... Maggie."

Alex's upper body and right leg were in the taxi with her left foot still planted on the ground as she stared, intently scrutinising the state of her sister.

"I'm fiiiiiine," Kara insisted although the way she lolled her head made her claim far less convincing. 

Alex just kept staring. Normally she would never dream of sending a drunk woman home alone but, well, Kara was Supergirl and even off her face she was more than capable of overcoming any threats that might present themselves to a 20-something year old woman on a 15 minute ride back to her apartment. Plus, the cab driver was a lady and Alex  _really_  wanted to be hanging with Mags right now so...

"Okay, fine, but if you don't text me in 30 to say you're home I'm sending in a whole strike team, you got it?"

"I got it, I got it," Kara drawled and Alex gave her a long, lingering warning look before backing out of the cab and slamming the door.

"Where to, Miss?" asked the driver and the reporter found herself unexpectedly stumped. Sure, she'd promised Alex she was going home, but she really didn't wanna go home.

"Miss?" the driver prompted after close to a minute without a response. "You're on the clock here."

"Oh!" Kara had an idea. She gave the cabbie an address and scrabbled around in her bag for her phone. The taxi had pulled out onto the main strip by the time her fumbling fingers wrapped around the device. She poked at the screen for longer than she should have ever needed to before she found the number she was looking for and hit dial. 

* * *

It was nearly 10 on a Friday night and, unusually, Lena Luthor was at home - if you could call it that. She spent so little time in the penthouse apartment that she'd never bothered to fill it with many personal effects. It was a luxurious house, sure, but home would be a generous description.

At this point in the evening she'd normally still be at the office, but tonight she'd left at half seven. It had been a killer week and the thumping headache she'd developed meant she was making no progress on her end of quarter reports so she bailed early. Sometimes, even when you're the head of a huge multinational, you just need to come home, slip into some sweatpants, take off your bra and pour a huge glass of wine.

Her chill Spotify playlist was running through her state-of-the-art sound system and she was stretched out on her enormous couch, savouring her Pinot Noir, when her phone lit up on the coffee table. If she hadn't spotted the picture on the screen out the corner of her eye, she would've ignored it but instead she reached across so fast she almost slopped wine all over her cream shag rug.

"Kara! Hi!" Lena cringed as soon as the greeting came out of her mouth. It was so... overeager and un-suave. She was one of the most powerful women in the entire United States and yet Kara Danvers still turned her into an archetypal useless lesbian. Lillian would be disgusted.

"Heyyyyyy bestie," Kara replied in a tone that Lena had never heard from her before.

"What can I do for you at this hour?" Lena asked calmly, trying helplessly to salvage some of her dignity.

"You home?"

"I am actually."

"Great!"

Before Lena could respond, a loud beep sounded in her ear as Kara hung up.

The CEO eyed her phone suspiciously before dropping it back on the coffee table and taking an unrefined gulp of wine to soothe her nerves. She had enough Kara Danvers problems without weird late night calls.

She wanted to text Kara immediately and ask if she was alright but she didn't want to over reach. She settled on chugging the rest of her Pinot instead before flopping back onto the couch and rubbing her hands over her face. This little... crush of hers was a problem and it needed to be fixed.

(It wasn't actually just a crush and it couldn't actually be fixed because Lena was actually irrevocably in love with her straight best friend like a walking lesbian cliche, but that was too intense to admit.)

She flicked the volume up on her music and shut her eyes, hoping to drown out the sound of her own thoughts, but the method's efficacy was questionable. On the one hand her thumping headache returned but on the other it meant she was in too much pain to ruminate. She chalked it up as an overall, albeit unpleasant, success.

She lay unmoving for nigh on 20 minutes until the ding of the doorbell shattered her equilibrium. It was almost a surprise she even heard it over the pounding in her ears and 70 decibels of Regina Spektor.

* * *

Kara ended the call and then instantly regretted it when Lena wasn't talking to her anymore. She knew she had a reason for hanging up but she just couldn't remember it anymore. She thought about ringing straight back but that seemed like overkill given she was about to arrive on Lena's doorstep. Her head was all fuzzy and buzzy and it was nice to stare out at the passing city lights, too out of it to dwell on anything stressful.

The cab made it to Lena's building in impressive time and Kara stuffed too much cash into the driver's hand before tumbling out of the car onto the curb. She managed to walk in a relatively straight line into Lena's lobby and put on her best show of sobriety for security and the doorman. It wasn't the most believable if the doorman's "are you okay, ma'am?" was anything to go by.

Lena had given Kara free access to her apartment building as well as to her office, so after a quick ID check the reporter was left to stumble over to the elevators. She reached the 18th floor in about 18 seconds and popped out into Lena's private hallway. Alex would approve. Having the lift open directly into the apartment would be a horrible security risk.

Kara tottered across the hall and practically fell on the doorbell before leaning on the doorframe while she waited. When Lena finally opened the door after a very long minute, Kara enveloped her in a bone crushing hug before the CEO even got the chance to say hello.

* * *

Lena groaned dramatically as the sound of the doorbell reverberated around the apartment. She hadn't got a call from downstairs and the only other person with unrestricted access to this floor was Kara which meant the person at the door was either her or an assassin who'd managed to evade security. Lena hauled herself up off the couch and slowly padded towards the front door, bypassing the kitchen on her way. She didn't have the emotional fortitude to deal with Kara or a murder attempt without more wine. She took a long draw straight from the bottle, then squared her shoulders and walked to face her visitor.

Of all the things she expected when she peeked through the peephole and spotted Kara waiting in the hall, getting smothered in a hug as soon as the door opened was not near the top of the list. Lena had to revise her Kara or a murder attempt prediction because this seemed like attempted murder by Kara. The reporter (and unacknowledged Kryptonian) was like an adorable boa constrictor in a button down, slowly squeezing the air out of Lena's lungs. But hey, if she had to die today, going wrapped in Kara's arms wasn't a bad option.

Then, just as the CEO started to worry her ribs were going to crack, Kara released her. Lena sucked in a deep breath before properly looking at Kara who was staring back at her with eyes wide and mouth agape.

* * *

It wasn't until after she pulled back from the hug that Kara noticed what Lena was wearing. When her best friend gasped for oxygen like she'd been underwater for too long, Kara worried she'd held on too tightly but that thought quickly got extinguished by the sight of Lena Luthor in black sweatpants and a deep purple t-shirt. Kara had barely ever seen the CEO in jeans let alone in full blown home clothes, with her face bare and her hair messily loose. She was  _beautiful_  and it was frying the few of Kara's brain circuits that had previously remained firing post-rum. She couldn't make herself do anything but stare.

* * *

"Kara, are you okay?" Lena asked gently, examining her friend with a mixture of confusion and concern.

"Uh yeah, I'm gooood. I jus' uh... Um... I mean, look at... pfft," Kara rambled, waving her hand up and down at the bamboozled woman in the doorway.

"Okay then," Lena said, her eyebrows briefly shooting up towards her hairline before she regained control of her facial expressions. "Would you like to come inside?"

"Ooooh yes! I'd lurve to come inside," Kara singsonged, surprisingly flirtatiously, as she brushed past Lena and entered the penthouse.

Once she made it into the apartment, the youngest Danvers tripped over her own feet trying to take her shoes off then broke into a fit of giggles.

"Hey Lena, didya see tha'? I coulda fell on my face!"

"I did see that actually, yes," Lena stated dryly, still visually scanning Kara from head to toe, trying to diagnose what was wrong with her. Lena had never, ever seen her like this. She was so...

"Kara, are you drunk?!" the CEO exclaimed with shock and alarm as soon as the penny dropped.

"Yup," Kara confirmed, popping the P before breaking into another fit of giggles as she staggered over to the dining table and took a seat.

"How did you even get here?" Lena asked, worried Kara had been out wandering the streets inebriated and alone.

"Al-ex put me inna cab. Don' worry, I didn' drink and fly," Kara replied before snorting like she'd told a hilarious joke.

Lena had circled around so she was standing opposite Kara at the table and when the reporter cracked that comment she had to unwrap her arms from across her chest and grab the back of a chair to maintain her composure. Of all the ways she'd expected, hoped,  _dreamed_  this confession would come...

This was not one she'd prepared for and she didn't know what she was supposed to do.

"Oooh!" Kara shouted, flinging her arms in the air, having obviously failed to process Lena's reaction. "I needa text Alexaaaandra or she gonna send SWAT t'come ge' me."

Lena just looked at her questioningly and, somehow through the rum haze, Kara got the hint to explain.

"I p'omised to text her when 'm home so she know I'm safe and she can sex Maggie and not worry 'bout me."

"But you're not home," Lena half stated, half inquired, trying her hardest not to think about Agent Danvers and Detective Sawyer engaging in any X-rated activities.

"I'm am!" Kara protested before gazing up at Lena softly. "I'm home whenever I'm wif you."

For the second time in as many minutes Lena found herself struck mute, choked by emotions. That was one of the most meaningful things anyone had ever said to her. She was suddenly glad Kara was so intoxicated and busy prodding at her iPhone because it meant she escaped interrogation over the tears pricking at the corner of her eyes.

"Hey Lena," the reporter said suddenly as she chucked her phone down before she fidgeted with her glasses and knocked them askew. "D'you know why I'm drunk?"

"No, I don't know why you're drunk," Lena said as she took a seat across from Kara because she didn't know how many more revelations she could handle and stay standing. She wasn't entirely sober herself, after all.

"'Cos of you," Kara alleged, pointing her finger accusingly at Lena over the table. The CEO opened her mouth to say something but Kara's verbal train wasn't to be stopped.

"'Cos I wanna kiss you."

Lena's open mouth formed a silent 'oh' and the surprise made her frown involuntarily for a second before she smoothed her features so Kara didn't freak out. Before Lena could actually get any words out though, Kara kept going.

"'Cos you're really pretty an' then I wanna kiss you all the time. An' you're really smart an' you're really nice an' you make me laugh an' you're really really pretty. An' I wanna kiss you. All the time."

If Kara had been sober, she wouldn't have made it to the end of her sentence without Lena collecting the rest of her words in a kiss and by now they'd probably be halfway to making out on top of Lena's polished oak dining table. As it was, she instead employed all of her Luthor self control to keep her expression neutral, her posture relaxed and her ass in her chair. She wasn't one to take advantage of women who weren't in possession of all their faculties.

"An' then today," Kara barrelled on, waving her hands around wildly, oblivious to Lena's internal struggles. "Today! You were like extra pretty at lunch an' I extra wanted to kiss you an' then I was sad that I wasn't kissing you an' when Alex is sad she gets to drink so why can't I? Jus' cos I'm Supergirl doesn't mean I don't getta have fun!"

Lena couldn't recall ever being so lost for words in her entire life. Thankfully, Kara didn't seem to mind being the sole source of conversation.

"Oops," the Kryptonian snorted. "I'm not 'posed to tell you that. Alex is gonna be so mad at me. Oh no. You're gonna be so mad at me."

Kara's face fell and her glasses slid down her nose as she shook her head despairingly. She looked devastated and Lena couldn't bear it.

"I'm not mad at you," she assured, reaching across the table to grab Kara's hand that had dropped limply onto the oak.

"Really?" Kara sought tentatively, curling her warm fingers around Lena's cold ones.

"Really."

"You don't hate me?"

"Of course not."

"You sure?"

"I'm sure."

Kara released a long, shaky breath of relief and propped her head up on her free hand, knocking her glasses further out of place. She gazed across the table at Lena who was looking back at her with affectionate amusement.

"You don't need these to see, do you?" Lena asked as she leaned over to pluck the glasses off Kara's face.

"Nope," Kara confirmed as Lena carefully placed the frames on the table.

"You do need sleep," Lena said as she let go of Kara's hand, levered herself out of her chair and made her way over to the kitchen. "I'll get you some pjs and we'll talk in the morning, okay?"

"Okay," Kara groaned, instantly missing the contact. She chose to cope by laying her head on the table. The buzz was wearing off and the sleepy was setting in and she could feel her eyes drifting closed.

Her nap time was interrupted by Lena clunking two glasses of water down in front of her.

"Drink. Alcohol is dehydrating."

Kara groaned again and didn't move so the CEO poked the back of her best friend's head until the reporter finally sat up and downed the fluid.

"How did you get drunk anyway?" Lena asked as Kara paused between the two glasses. "I thought Kryptonians were immune to alcohol."

"Aldebaran rum. Very strong. Lethal to humans," Kara explained before throwing back the second glass. "Oh. I needa pee."

"Go," Lena chuckled. "You know where the bathroom is."

The reporter staggered through the apartment to the toilet and Lena laughed before walking to her bedroom to fetch Kara some clothes from her dresser.

* * *

"I've got you something to wear," Lena said a little while later as she knocked on the bathroom door. It swung ajar and Kara's bare arm snaked out through the gap, hand waving around, hunting for fabric.

"Thanks," Kara acknowledged when Lena put the clothes bundle where she could grab it and then the reporter's arm slithered back into a bathroom before the door closed with a quiet click.

Lena retreated to the kitchen and avoided her thoughts by clearing up drink receptacles for a few minutes until Kara emerged. She caught sight of her best friend and had to stifle a giggle. The Kryptonian was a few inches taller than she was and it showed with Kara's exposed ankles poking out from the bottom of Lena's blue pyjama pants. The grey shirt though, that fit quite well, and Lena had to actively not think about a future in which she and Kara shared clothes regularly.

She must not have hidden her mirth well though, because Kara was pouting at her like something out of a tragi-comedy and Lena desperately wanted to capture that bottom lip between her own. That was another thing she wasn't supposed to be thinking about.

"Come on, beanpole," the CEO said, walking over to Kara and patting her on the shoulder. "Let's get you to bed."

Oh how she'd like to get Kara onto a bed. Or a couch. Or a floor. Anywhere would do, really. Ooh, what about her L-Corp desk...

Lena shook her head imperceptibly to rid her mind of such inappropriate content as she lead the way to her bedroom and Kara trailed obediently behind her, managing not to trip over a single thing on the journey. One of the benefits of never being home was that Lena had an immaculate floor.

"Get in," the CEO instructed once they made it to her very large room, gesturing at the king sized bed in the middle of the space.

"Oh no, I can take couch," Kara tried to argue but Lena just fixed her with a brutally effective executive stare.

"Don't even dream of it," she warned. "You're my guest. Get in."

Kara sighed dreamily and took a moment to stare at the deliciously lovely bed in front of her before collapsing face first onto the covers with a womph.

Lena's mouth curved into an amused smile as she watched the reporter wriggle up the bed and flop her head onto a pillow. Actually getting under the duvet seemed to be too hard in her compromised state so Lena hit the switch for the blinds then left to retrieve a big blanket from the linen cupboard. By the time she returned, Kara had curled into a little ball on her side and was snoring softly, mouth hanging open. Lena had never seen her look so small or so young. It made her heart clench with affection (or with love, actually, but she still wasn't acknowledging that).

She draped the blanket over the sleeping Kryptonian and stood observing her for a moment before dropping an illicit kiss on her temple and retreating to the safety of the lounge, snagging a pillow for herself on her way out.

As soon as the bedroom door swung closed, Lena let out a tense breath. She didn't know how to describe the past hour of her life. It was like an emotional tornado had ripped through her world and she had to figure out how to pick up the pieces afterwards. She was half convinced she was going to wake up in the morning and discover it was all a bizarre fever dream. And yet, as she climbed into the bed she'd made for herself on the couch, she couldn't stop the glimmer of hope that unfurled in her chest.

She knew it was unwise. She knew that she had no idea how alcohol affected Kryptonian physiology or psychology. She knew that meant that she had no idea how much Kara had actually meant anything she said, but hope was a stubborn creature and it bloomed regardless of logic.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> on tumblr @gramingo


	2. Kara

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CW from a very minor mention of suicidality, and also a tiny spoiler warning for Atomic Blonde

Kara rarely slept past 8am. The sun would reach a certain point in the sky, light would filter through the curtains and the Kryptonian's cells would invariably begin to hum with energy. On the one hand, she nearly never needed to set an alarm but on the other, she couldn't remember the last time she'd slept in - even when she was shattered.

That why, when she woke up in the pitch darkness, she assumed it was the middle of the night even though she felt unusually refreshed. She hadn't accounted for the impervious effectiveness of Lena's blackout blinds because she hadn't even actually remembered she was in Lena's bed yet.

It wasn't until she rolled over and the light of a clock that wasn't hers shone out of the inky blackness, that memories of the previous night started to trickle back.

Oh Rao.

What had she done?!

As recollections flashed through her mind in fits and bursts, Kara wanted to crawl under the covers and never ever come out. Only these weren't her covers, and presumably Lena would want her bed back at some point. The reporter considered trying to sneak back to her own apartment to avoid the humiliation of facing the CEO in the morning, until she squinted at the bedside clock. When the numbers blinked into focus Kara nearly hit the ceiling. Literally. She flew out of the bed in surprise and only just stopped before she smashed a hole through Lena's roof.

_10:36am_

Nearly 12 hours of sleep did explain why she felt so rejuvenated, and why her stomach felt like it was going to cannibalise itself with hunger, but it also meant that running away was probably off the cards.

Unless she wanted to fly across National City in Lena Luthor's pyjamas and leave all her belongings behind.

That wasn't an appealing option.

Kara released a groan from deep within her chest as she floated down to the floor and dragged her hands through her tangled mass of hair. She fumbled around the room in the darkness and somehow managed to find the switch for the blinds, then winced as sunlight flooded the room through the wall of south facing windows. Once the initial brightness shock wore off, Kara indulged in the buzz of solar radiation soaking into her system before she had to contemplate leaving the bedroom sanctuary to confront her mistakes.

Once the clock ticked past twenty to eleven Kara knew she couldn't avoid the inevitable any longer. She reluctantly sloped over to the door and lay a hand on the handle before she spun around and chickened out.

What  _had_  she done?!

Lena and her friendship were the best things in Kara's life right now and she'd gone and blown it all up. Catastrophically. She told her that she was Supergirl  _and_  that she wanted to kiss her. It was an irreparable disaster. Alcohol was bad. She was never drinking again.

Never ever again.

* * *

Five minutes of anxious pacing later, Kara was ready for a second attempt at biting the bullet. She took a steadying breath then straightened her pyjamas, set her jaw and, before she could change her mind, marched out of the room with as much confidence as she could fake.

She'd been so caught up in her emotional turmoil that it wasn't until she burst into the empty living area that she realised she couldn't hear Lena's heartbeat anywhere in the building, let alone in the apartment. All her puffed up bravado dissipated in an instant and the Kryptonian deflated like a sad balloon, shoulders slumping forward. It was nice that an agonisingly uncomfortable conversation had been deferred but it also meant the awkwardness would have more time to percolate which wasn't nice at all. She brooded in the middle of Lena's lounge, dwelling on her predicament until a loud, angry growl from her gut reminded her that she was starving. That jolted Kara into action and she almost used super-speed to race over to the kitchen.

The first thing she spotted on the bench was a mysterious mound beneath a red tea towel that looked promisingly like food. The next thing she noticed was the piece of paper folded in half, with  _Kara_  written on the front in Lena's crisp script. It was indicative of her attachment to the CEO that Kara grabbed the note before the food.

 _Kara,_  it read.

_I had a 9am conference call to take care of at L-Corp and didn't want to wake you. Feel free to make yourself at home._

_There's pancakes on the bench, butter in the fridge and maple in the pantry. Your clothes are hung up by the door, your phone is in your bag and your glasses are still on table._

_I'll get in touch when I'm finished - should be around 2._

_Hope you had a good rest,_

_Lena xx_

_P.S. The pancakes aren't vegan or dairy-free_

Kara felt teary as she ripped the cloth off the pancake stack and immediately shoved one in her mouth, devouring half of it in a single bite. Lena had a morning meeting at nine on a  _Saturday_  and she'd taken the time to make fifteen pancakes with chocolate chips in them just the way Kara liked. She'd even cleaned up the dishes and Kara was genuinely touched.

In her hunger, the Kryptonian stood at the kitchen island and tore through pancakes until the bottomless pit in her stomach was full enough for her to grab a plate, cutlery and condiments. She then plonked down at the table, slathered the remaining ten in butter and genuine, $30 a bottle, organic Canadian maple syrup before demolishing them in ten minutes flat. If Lena was expecting leftovers she was going to be disappointed.

Finally satiated, Kara leaned back in her chair with a satisfied sigh. The time had trickled past eleven during her breakfast feast, so getting into her own clothes and going back to her own house was probably a good idea but it took her another couple of minutes to break out of her happy food coma and muster the motivation to get up.

She found her bag under her clothes, which were hanging on the coat hook by the door as promised, and fished her phone out to flick a  _'thanks for the food'_ text to Lena. It wasn't until she clicked the screen on to discover three missed calls and eight messages from Alex that she remembered agreeing to a sister date yesterday.

"Rao!" she hissed as she punched in her passcode and brought up Alex's message thread.

 _10:02am  
_**[Alex]**  I'm on my way over. Any flavour requests?

 _10:14am  
_**[Alex]**  Last chance

 _10:22am  
_**[Alex]**  Fine, I'm getting orange choc chip

 _10:30am  
_**[Alex]**  Hey sleepyhead, I'm here. Open up

 _10:40am  
_**[Alex]**  Kara?

 _10:45am  
_**[Alex]**  I know you can hear me banging, open the damn door

 _10:51am  
_**[Alex]**  Kara, where the hell are you?

 _11:03am  
_**[Alex]**  If I don't hear from you in 10 I'm calling the DEO

Kara looked at the time.  _11:09_. F...rick.

 _11:10am  
_ On my way. See you soon  **[Kara]**

Kara was tempted to super-speed around the house to tidy up after herself but Alex had convinced her that tended to make more mess than it cleaned so instead she rushed around at a human level of fast. In five minutes she washed and dried her dishes, threw on her clothes and made the bed. Okay, so maybe she used a little bit of super-speed, but only where practical. In her panic, the thank you text to Lena was completely forgotten.

Usually, she would never dream of flying in her civvies in broad daylight but her apartment was at least a 40 minute cab ride across town and she'd already left Alex waiting for more than half an hour. Making a decision, Kara collected her stuff, tucked her glasses into her bag, slipped out onto Lena's lounge balcony and looked around furtively with both her normal and x-ray vision. Seeing nothing and nobody watching her, she launched vertically into the air as quickly as she could without destroying Lena's deck with a shock wave.

She accelerated and ascended straight up at Mach 0.9 until she hit 15,000ft, where she was far above the low hanging cloud and prying eyes but far below the aircraft flight paths over this part of the city. She levelled out and zoomed towards her loft, nudging, but never breaking the sound barrier. The last thing Supergirl needed was to sonic boom while dressed as Kara Danvers.

She arrived in less than 90 seconds and slowed to a hover above her building. She then sunk slowly through the clouds, before peeking out and positioning herself above an alley. When the coast seemed as clear it was going to get she dropped out of the sky, aiming for safety behind a dumpster. Unfortunately, her aim was a little off and she crashed into a pungent pile of trash bags instead. Great. Like she didn't have enough to explain to Alex already. Once the shock of the landing wore off she crawled out of the rubbish heap and crouched behind the dumpster until she felt sure nobody was coming.

It took a minute but then Kara straightened up, shoved her glasses onto her nose and slipped out into the alley, brushing an old banana skin off her shoulder as she went. She winced at the rank slime it left behind as she traipsed around to the front of her building and headed inside before zipping up the stairs. She kept her ears peeled to make sure nobody would see her moving with inhuman speed as she made it to her floor in a matter of seconds and then, once there,  she trudged around the corner to face the Alexandra Danvers music.

* * *

Alex was sitting on the ground with her knees up, leaning back against Kara's door with a Ralph's bag full of the promised ice cream abandoned at her side. She shot to her feet as soon as she spotted her sister coming, rested her hands passive-aggressively on her hips and fixed Kara with her best mom/cop glare before wrinkling her nose at the stench coming off the Kryptonian.

"Where have you been, young lady?" she asked harshly. "And why are you damp and stinky?"

Kara considered lying. She genuinely did. But she wasn't very good at it and the fact she was wearing the same clothes Alex had seen her in yesterday was a dead giveaway that she hadn't just nipped out to the shops and lost track of time.

"I was at Lena's," the reporter admitted reluctantly, knowing Alex wasn't the CEO's biggest fan.

"Luthor's?!" Alex exclaimed with mild horror. "And what did she do with you? Throw you in a pool full of trash?"

"No," Kara countered as she slid her key into her lock and opened the door to her apartment. "This," she said, gesturing to her current state, "was all my doing."

"Did you willingly jump into a pool full of trash?" Alex asked as she deposited the undoubtedly melting ice cream onto the bench.

"No," was all Kara offered in response.

"Are you going to tell me what happened or not?" Alex pushed, clearly getting impatient with Kara's recalcitrance.

"I went to Lena's. Last night. Going home seemed boring so I went to Lena's," the reporter confessed after a moment, nervously fidgeting with her glasses as she spoke. "She has like... the world's best blinds and I didn't wake up until ten thirty and I'm sorry, I completely forgot about our sister day."

"Okay, fine, but that still doesn't explain why you're all..." Alex trailed off, reduced to waving her hand at her sister's disheveled appearance.

"I flew here."

"Wearing  _that?!_ "

"I flew above the clouds so nobody saw me and I tried to come down behind a dumpster but..."

"But?"

"I missed," Kara admitted in a whisper.

"You what?"

"I missed," the reporter repeated, louder this time. "I landed in trash."

Alex just burst into throaty laughter and bent in half, clutching at her thighs as she cackled. Kara huffed at her sister's reaction and re-positioned her glasses on her nose as she waited for Alexandra to compose herself.

"I'm sorry," Alex wheezed after about 30 seconds of solid hysteria. "That's just so funny."

And there went the laughter again.

"Since you're having such a good time, I'm going to go shower," Kara said in a faux-miffed tone before pointing at the ice cream. "I'll fix that when I get out."

* * *

A solid ten minutes later, Kara emerged from the steamy bathroom, fully cleansed of her Friday night and Saturday morning adventures. She was clad in fresh, dry clothes and her soiled attire was dumped in the hamper. She towelled her hair dry as she ambled into the living room where Alex had taken up residence on the couch and was absentmindedly flicking through their Netflix queue with her feet kicked up on the coffee table.

"Hey dumpster diver," the elder Danvers called and Kara tried to throw her towel at her but it fell pathetically short.

"You feeling better?" Alex asked more gently as she got up to join Kara on the way to the kitchen.

"Much," the younger Danvers replied as she eyed the ice cream bag. "Tell me there's not only orange choc chip in there."

"Please," Alex scoffed as she started pulling the pints out. "I'm mean, but I'm not a sadist. I got you maple walnut, choc chip cookie dough, and white chocolate raspberry."

"You're the best sister sometimes!" Kara squealed, wrapping her arms around Alex's neck.

"Only sometimes?" Alex asked once the Kryptonian released her.

"Most of the time."

"I'll take it."

Kara laughed while Alex frowned as she watched her sister line up the pints along the bench.

"What are you doing?" she asked skeptically.

"Fixing the ice cream," was Kara's chipper reply and, before Alex could question her further, the Kryptonian released a blast of freeze breath that left her kitchen island coated in a film of frost.

"Really, Kara?" Alex asked as the younger Danvers reached out to pry a pint off the icy surface.

"What?" Kara replied without a hint of irony and Alex shook her head before grabbing her own pint and two spoons. The ice cream was a little icy at the edges but otherwise perfectly edible. The freeze-breath had certainly worked much better than cooking with laser eyes.

The sisters plonked down on the couch with their respective pints (orange for the elder, cookie dough for the younger) and fired up Alex's previously agreed upon pick of Atomic Blonde.

("You just wanna watch Charlize Theron kiss girls," Kara had alleged on their last sisters' night as Alex protested that she was fascinated by the premise and she'd heard the fight scenes were exquisitely choreographed.)

* * *

Lorraine Broughton was climbing into a KGB car in Berlin when Alex broke the silence that had descended between the two Danvers.

"If you were at Lena's why did you text me that you were home?"

Kara just shovelled another Supergirl-worthy spoonful of cookie dough into her mouth in lieu of a response.

"Kara?" Alex prompted a minute later, as Lorraine started beating the driver with her high heel.

"I dunno..." Kara tried. She got Alex's 'don't spin that bullshit with me' look for her troubles and sighed into her next mouthful of frozen deliciousness.

"She's my best friend, I was essentially home and I was safe so..."

"Yeah but why didn't you just tell me where you were?"

"I know you don't... approve... and I just..."

Kara didn't have the energy nor the desire to explain that sometimes she felt like she constantly had to defend or justify her friendship with the youngest Luthor and last night she just wanted to see Lena without worrying about what everybody else thought.

"I do," Alex said abruptly, interrupting Kara's introspection.

"What?"

"I do approve."

"You do?" Kara asked disbelievingly, head whipping round to stare incredulously at her sister who was staring back softly. Lorraine Broughton's conversation with Percival was going forgotten in the background.

"I do," Alex confirmed. "She's good for you. I had my reservations at first, sure, but she's proven herself. She did send her own mom to prison."

Kara's hackles rose at the mention of Lillian. She needed more ice cream to cool her rage at the woman who'd left Lena so broken as Alex continued to talk.

"You trust her, and I trust you. Plus, you were right about her when the rest of us were convinced she was evil so... until something happens to change my mind, Luthor's in my good books."

"Did Alex Danvers just admit she was wrong?" Kara teased and Alex side eyed her haughtily.

"If you tell anyone, I'll deny it."

Kara hummed with satisfaction and settled into the couch, cradling her pint like a teddy bear.

"Hey Kara," Alex said before they could turn their full attention back to their movie.

"Mm?" Kara mumbled with her mouth full, eyes focused on Lorraine beating the living daylights out of the West Berlin police.

"All I want is for you to be happy. Anyone who makes you happy is okay with me. She makes you happy."

Kara just hummed again, too touched to form a coherent response and Alex let the subject drop.

* * *

Delphine was chatting Lorraine up in a Berlin bar when Kara heard a police chase that needed Supergirl's intervention. Alex waved off her apology as the Kryptonian threw herself out the window, leaving the curtains fluttering in her wake.

It was a relatively simple matter to resolve and Kara was back 20 minutes later, having dropped three armed robbers off at lock up. Her brief superhero excursion had, though, reminded her of a sin she should probably confess to. She changed out of her supersuit, collapsed onto the couch next to Alex and dove in the deep end.

"So... since you like Lena now, you won't mind that I told her I'm Supergirl, right?" Kara said casually, popping a spoon of maple walnut into her mouth.

"Kara!" Alex gasped. "You didn't!"

"You said you trusted her!" Kara protested around yet another mouthful of ice cream.

"I said I trusted you and you trust her which is technically different," Alex retorted, ignoring Kara's eye roll at the semantics. "But that's not the point! How many times have I asked you to pre-approve disclosures! Do you know how much extra paperwork I have when you tell people without authorisation?"

"I'm sorry... I forgot?" the reporter apologised limply and Alex pursed her lips.

"Because you were drunk or because you're forgetful?"

"I'm not forgetful!"

"Uh huh..."

Kara scoffed and cuddled her ice cream tighter into her chest as Alex brandished her spoon in her sister's direction.

"You owe me pizza for all the reports I have to file now. But anyway, I bet Lena already knew."

It was a low blow but as far as Alex was concerned, Kara was asking for it.

"If she knew she would have said something!" the Kryptonian countered, offended by what her sister was insinuating.

"You can tell yourself that, but if Luthor hadn't figured you out I'll eat Maggie's vegan lasagna. You're not subtle."

Lacking a quality riposte, Kara just let out a noise of disgust from the back of her throat and hit play on Atomic Blonde.

* * *

There was another brief interruption when Supergirl had to nip out to pluck a suicidal teenage boy off the roof of a downtown skyscraper and a third to order take-out for Kara who, unlike Alex, wasn't satisfied solely by literal pounds of frozen dessert. The reporter polished off two orders of pot stickers and a carton of pork lo mein that should have been enough for two as Broughton murdered Percival on screen.

"You're hungry today, even by your standards," Alex said, more enraptured by her sister's food inhalation than by the film.

"I'm emotionally eating," Kara mumbled, talking with her mouth stuffed with the last pot sticker. Alex looked at her askance and Kara quickly cleared her throat before changing the subject.

"When do I have you til?"

"About five thirty?" Alex replied, letting Kara's previous comment slide. "Maggie's making me go to hot yoga at six."

"Gross."

"I know."

"Remind me why you love her again?"

Alex reminded her by smacking Kara across the side with a couch cushion and the Kryptonian openly laughed at her for it.

"You know you can't hurt me."

"It's the intent that counts."

"You can tell yourself that," Kara taunted, echoing Alex's jibe from earlier and the elder Danvers glared at her filthily. Before Alex could get to threatening Kara with a showdown in the green room, the reporter introduced a diversion.

"We have time for Legally Blonde then?"

That's when Alex really knew something was seriously up. Legally Blonde was Kara's go-to 'I'm miserable' movie and between that, the eating and the rum... She could sense the mood in the room though, so she didn't pry and instead nodded her assent.

* * *

They made it through Elle Woods' adventures in first year law without a single interruption. Once it ended the sisters stayed curled on the couch, chatting about everything and nothing until Maggie swung by at exactly 5:33 to retrieve her girlfriend.

"Hey Danvers, Little Danvers."

"Sawyer." That was Alex.

"Hey Mags!" That was Kara. She always was the more enthusiastic sister.

"How's the hangover?" the detective asked, leaning casually against the door frame as Alex fetched various belongings that had scattered themselves across Kara's apartment.

"Super metabolism," the reporter replied smugly and Maggie made a jealous ick noise in response.

"Sorry for crashing your date by the way..." Kara offered contritely, head hanging in shame.

"Don't worry about it, kid," Maggie laughed. "Rite of passage, right?"

"You could say that," Alex said as she joined Maggie in the doorway and gazed down at her slightly tragic looking sister on the couch. "I'll call you tomorrow, yeah?"

"Yeah," Kara echoed morosely and Alex shared a look of concern with her girlfriend.

"You gonna be okay?"

"Yeah, yeah, I'll be fine," Kara said, attempting to be reassuring. "Go enjoy hot yoga."

Maggie cracked into a wicked smile at that and wrapped an arm around Alex's sagging shoulders.

"Are you sure you're okay? You don't need me to stay?" Alex pleaded in a last ditch effort to get out of sweating in a sweltering room with a dozen other people trying to stretch their bodies into unnatural positions.

"No!" Kara insisted, pointing firmly out the door. "Go!"

Alex looked like she was being taken hostage as Maggie dragged her out into the hallway, with the detective throwing a "see ya, Little Danvers," over her shoulder before pulling the door shut. Kara's ears picked up Alex grumbling all the way down to the street and Maggie placating her with promises that she wouldn't make Alex go to the juice bar tonight.

She sighed enviously at the domesticity of it all. She could absolutely envisage Lena hauling her along to all sorts of healthy activities and Kara would absolutely tolerate it if it meant she got to go home with the CEO at the end of the night. She'd even try wheat-grass shots if she had to.

Really, she thought, the CEO and the detective would get along like a house on fire if they could ever get over that little Maggie throwing Lena in jail hurdle. They probably even knew all the same health food stores and vegan restaurants.

Kara sighed again and readjusted her glasses on her nose. Thinking about Lena just reminded her of last night and thinking about last night made her gut try to turn itself inside out. Alex had been a welcome distraction for half a day but now she was left to her own devices and if she didn't find something to do she was going to overthink herself into a deep depression.

A perfectly reasonable person might ask why she didn't just grab her phone, call Lena and clear the air. The answer was because that would involve confronting her problems head on and while Supergirl was great at that, Kara Danvers was not. Kara Danvers was chronically avoidant and she was going to do what she did best.

In this instance, her avoidance involved pulling her laptop over to the couch, snuggling under her favourite throw and burying herself in research for the article Snapper wanted her to write on the controversial new textile factory opening out east. She spent hours poring over background information, financial records, business ties, personnel data and more. She even went so far as to lodge a request with Winn for some... harder to obtain information. She only paused for a minor Supergirl mission and to order, then consume two large pizzas.

(She told herself she ordered the vege supreme because she wanted some greenery with her meal. It was a total lie. She ordered it because it reminded her of Lena. Who she was trying desperately not to think about, hence the excuses.)

What she did not do was look at her mobile. She didn't even touch it. When Alex left it remained buried in her bag, in the same place she'd shoved it before she fled Lena's apartment. She researched on her computer, she ordered pizza online, and she asked for Winn's help via email. Before she crashed into bed at quarter to eleven she checked the time on the microwave.

If she'd been less of a coward she might have seen:

 _2:04pm  
_**[Lena]**  How's my favorite reporter holding up?

 _6:38pm  
_ 1 missed call:  **Lena**

 _10:22pm  
_**[Lena]**  Hope you're doing okay. Talk tomorrow?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Don't worry, Lena returns in her full glory in the next chapter. I just couldn't resist a decent dose of Danvers sister bonding.


	3. Lena

Lena was having a certifiably terrible day.

What should have been a 90 minute conference call in the morning took three hours because a bunch of old white men were too busy being misogynistic pillocks to get to the point. Two hours in, her chronic stress headache returned and she had to sit through another hour of droning before she could get her hands on some Tylenol. She missed pancake breakfast with her best friend for this and she was pissed.

Her mood hit rock bottom around one when she found a litany of errors in the latest proposal submitted by her marketing department. The head of marketing was a slimy, disingenuous little man who happened to be largely brilliant at his job, which was the only reason she kept him around. However, this was a hugely inconvenient cock-up and she was tempted to ring Mr. Dubois to tear strips off him. The fact she prided herself on not being one of  _those_  CEOs was the only thing that stopped her. Instead, she balled up the cover page of the offending document and hurled it across her office before sending a curt but professional  _'please explain'_  email.

By three her mood started digging beneath rock bottom because, an hour after she messaged her, she still hadn't heard from Kara. Not that she was needy and unable to tolerate a lack of contact but she'd left Kara alone and drunkenly passed out this morning so a quick text to say  _'hi, I'm alive, you're not going to find me dead in your bed from alcohol poisoning'_  would've been nice.

Lena coped by doing what she always did when she was angsty: she worked. When you're the head of a company like L-Corp, there's always something to do.

She began by reviewing end-of-quarter reports until she absolutely couldn't stand it anymore because, although she hated it, it was also a non-negotiable necessity. It was after six when she finally gave up because she could read a paragraph five times without absorbing a word, and she  _still_  hadn't heard from Kara.

Her hand hovered over her phone for an indecisive moment before she snatched it off her desk, pulled up the reporter's contact and hit dial. The call rang through to voicemail and Lena might be a high-powered executive but she was still a millennial, so she hung up without leaving a message. Kara's radio silence was really starting to grate.

She petulantly dropped her phone onto her desk and yanked her bottom drawer open to fish out the bag of scroggin she kept stashed at the back. She hadn't eaten since breakfast and she was suddenly aware that she was famished. And hangry.

She ungracefully shoved a handful of dried fruit and nuts between her teeth and grumpily chomped down. The more she thought about the entire Kara situation, the more irritated she became. As she worked her way through the scroggin, she worked herself up to seething.

Turn up at her house drunk, late on a Friday night, without warning or invitation? Fine!

Dangle some of Lena's deepest held desires right in front of her nose only to rip them away? Fine! Well... not  _fine_. But manageable!

To dangle those desires then rip them away via ghosting? Definitely not fine and, in Lena's opinion, unnecessarily cruel.

It was also relatively out of character. Lena hadn't picked Kara as a ghoster and the conspiracy-minded part of her brain was willing to suspect RedK. In some ways the theory fit (the drinking, the prodding of Lena's vulnerabilities, etc) and if Kara was now stuck in DEO quarantine that would explain the complete lack of communication. In other ways though, something was off. From what she could find, RedK Kara was a sex-bomb of destruction - rather unlike the pitifully adorable creature that had sat at Lena's dining table last night.

The CEO sighed with exasperation and threw her food back where it came from, kicking the drawer shut with her now bare foot. Her heels had come off hours ago. She then tugged her keyboard towards her and pulled up the files on the latest pet project she had R&D working on.

Thinking about Kara turned Lena into an unproductive emotional mess - a phrase the CEO was loathe to use in reference to herself. So, she wasn't going to think about Kara.

* * *

It was nearly ten by the time Lena finished annotating her changes to the latest psionic shield blueprints and she was wrecked. Working on the project she'd illicitly commissioned to aid Supergirl perhaps wasn't the best choice when she didn't want to think about Kara and maintaining that cognitive dissonance had taken more energy than she anticipated.

She pressed the heels of her palms into her eye sockets, hoping to rub away the tired prickling but all she achieved was making her eyes water. She could recognise a lost cause when she saw one, so she fired off a last email to R&D before powering down her computer.

Her job often necessitated using a chauffeur so she could work up until the second before she arrived at wherever she was going, but she didn't particularly enjoy it. She liked the sense of freedom and independence that driving gave her and she kept a car in a private space in the L-Corp parking lot just for occasions like these. And okay, so maybe getting behind the wheel when she was exhausted wasn't the best idea she'd ever had but she needed to blow off some steam and the growl of the 560bhp twin-turbo V8 beneath the hood of her BMW seemed like just what she was after.

The nice thing about her wealth was that she didn't have to worry about the fine she'd incur if she got pinged going 25 over the limit down the long straight before her street.

(The bad publicity was another matter entirely - one that she chose to wilfully ignore.)

Mercifully, she didn't get caught tonight and, by the time she swung into her park in the underground lot beneath her building, the speed and acceleration had certainly lifted her spirits.

* * *

The first thing Lena did when she got home, aside from kicking off her shoes, was to check the kitchen. The fact the pancakes were gone was a comforting reassurance that Kara probably hadn't died in Lena's apartment, at least not overnight. Her paranoia drove her to check every room in the penthouse for a body anyway. She even looked in her office despite the fact that Kara didn't have the access code.

(Yes, Lena had a separate lock on her office even though it was in her highly secure apartment. She'd learned you never could be too careful about security, especially when it came to the sorts of sensitive projects she tended to work on in the comfort of her own home.)

With the search completed, she stood helplessly in the middle of the lounge, feeling lost in her own apartment. She was immensely glad to find no sign of Kara's corpse and no indications of foul play, but her heart also sank slightly because if the reporter was fine it meant she was probably ignoring Lena entirely of her own volition. The thought hurt and she was perturbed by how this one frustratingly amazing woman could throw her so off kilter.

Lena had always been like a planet. She orbited around a singular focus - first study, and then work. But she was starting to suspect that, without her permission, she'd transmogrified into some kind of moon. She still travelled around the sun that was L-Corp, but she was also inexorably trapped by the gravity of Kara Danvers.

If she was honest, she'd known for a while. Her pathetic preoccupation with Kara had begun almost as soon as the not-yet reporter had trailed into her office behind Clark Kent. The instant the bespectacled blonde had answered her question with that quiet but deeply understanding 'yeah', Lena had become fascinated. The woman was enthralling and at every encounter thereafter Lena was drawn deeper into the web Kara didn't even know she was spinning.

By the time she was making sure that pot-stickers would be available at her otherwise extremely sophisticated gala, it was glaringly apparent that she was smitten but she couldn't bring herself to care. It was nice. Being friends with Kara was nice and Lena found herself feeling almost happy. Sure, in very rare quiet moments throughout the day or late at night when not even work was keeping her occupied, she would indulge in wistful fantasies of more but, by and large, she was content with taking whatever she could get. For all the darkness she kept buried far beneath her surface, Kara was still a living embodiment of joy and Lena was honoured to bask in her light.

It had been mildly irritating when her suspicions that Kara and Supergirl were one and the same had crystallised into incontrovertible knowledge but only because it meant her friend count in National City dropped from two to one. Nothing changed much, except she no longer worried that Kara had IBS or that her sister had dementia when the reporter disappeared to the bathroom for 15 minutes in the middle of brunch or Alex 'lost her keys' three times in a week. As the months wore on she tried not to think about how it hurt that Kara still had not confided in her, despite copious opportunities to do so. In the end though, she couldn't really blame her. Despite Kara's many protestations to the contrary and Lena's numerous attempts to prove herself trustworthy, once a Luthor, always a Luthor, right?

And then there had been yesterday.

Kara had nearly suffocated her and then told her everything she'd ever wanted to hear. It should have been a dream come true. Except Kara had drunkenly told her everything she ever wanted to hear and then gone AWOL so it was feeling more like a nightmare. It wasn't fair. She'd much prefer Kara just got it over with and broke her heart already. This current state of silent purgatory was unbearable.

Lena rescued her phone from her handbag and sent off a final, tragically pleading text because she couldn't help herself before growling at her own weakness and sullenly plugging the device into its charger. Her stomach rumbled with hunger because she'd barely eaten all day but assembling herself anything for dinner felt like an insurmountable task. Quite a change from the woman who'd crafted enough pancakes to feed a family at 7:30 that morning, she thought as she aggressively brushed her teeth. She might be tired, lazy and frazzled but dental hygiene was non-optional. Unlike dinner. Kara would be horrified.

Fuck Kara.

And not in the fun way.

(Although she would definitely prefer the fun way - with consent, of course).

Okay, so maybe she was bitter, Lena conceded to herself, as she stripped her face of make-up and changed into pyjamas, but she felt like she could justify a moment of bitterness after the day she'd had. Plus, it was a short step from bitter to angry, and angry was far more comfortable than miserable. She could handle angry.

She kept telling herself that all the way into bed but when she climbed under the covers and picked up the faint scent of Kara's shampoo on her pillow, the ruse was up. She was bitter, angry  _and_  miserable and she wasn't handling any of it.

Despite everything, she fell asleep within five minutes of her eyes drifting closed because her body was so exhausted that not even her overactive mind could keep it awake. She absolutely did not fall asleep with her arms wrapped around the pillow that smelled of Kara because that would be sad and adolescent, except that she actually did do exactly that.

* * *

Lena awoke later than usual, because Sunday was the one day she indulged in not setting an alarm, and she was resolute. She'd had all of Saturday to throw herself a pity party but today was a new day and she wasn't going to pine over a woman who couldn't even be bothered to get in touch.

Normally Lena showered before breakfast but after her accidental starvation diet yesterday she was so hungry she felt sick. She settled in for breakfast and checked the news over her granola, ruing her own stupidity as soon as she reached the local section. Of course there was a piece detailing Supergirl's Saturday deeds (time-stamped around 6pm) and if Lena had just thought to look at the damn news yesterday she would've saved herself a lot of worry over whether or not Kara was okay.

But today was a new day, she reminded herself as she got up and dumped her bowl in the sink, and therefore the indisputable confirmation that Kara had definitely been ignoring her didn't matter.

It didn't.

It really didn't.

Maybe if she thought it enough she might actually start to believe it.

* * *

A gratuitously long shower under obscenely high water pressure later, Lena was genuinely feeling a bit better. She grabbed the most comfortable work pants she could find (miraculously stretchy black slacks), the most practical work shirt she owned (sleeveless black button down) and a pair of boots with far smaller heels than her usual. It was Sunday - if she was going to the office, the least she could do was be as casual as possible (within the appearance constraints that came with being a very visible female CEO).

Once she was dressed and lightly made up, Lena collected some papers from her office and then she was good to go.

Kara would be nearly as horrified by Lena going to L-Corp on a Sunday as she would be by the fact Lena had skipped dinner, the CEO thought as she descended in the elevator down to the underground car park. Kara was a strong advocate of Lena taking time off but, as had already been established, fuck Kara.

Lena stepped into her M5, gunned the engine and roared out onto the road. Speeding in broad daylight when the streets were busy was too risqué for her liking, but that didn't mean she couldn't spin her tyres (just a little) off the line at stop lights for the hell of it. By the time she arrived at L-Corp she was almost feeling perky.

That sense of positivity lasted until she got to her office, switched on her desktop and opened an email full of mealy-mouthed bullshit excuses from her marketing director and an apology that the revised proposal wouldn't be available until Friday. Mr. Dubois was getting dangerously close to making himself expendable. The fact he'd destroyed any motivation she may have had to finish finalising the quarterly reports was another serious mark against him.

Lena needed those reports done asap, but the thought of tackling them now was enough to make her want to jump off her balcony instead. Because she didn't actually have a death wish, she didn't reach for the documents in her in-tray, but rather grabbed the schematics she'd brought from home and fled from her office to the safety of the R&D lab.

Lena treated her employees a little like how Kara treated her, at least when it came to expectations of down time. While she may be averse to taking days off herself, seven day work weeks were not accepted from her staff. The last thing she and L-Corp needed was burnout-induced labour turnover. An unintended benefit of her firm advocacy against excessive overtime was that, on a Sunday like today, the R&D lab was blissfully empty. There were modifications she wanted to tinker with on the psionic shield prototype and she wasn't interested in an audience.

Sometimes there was something glorious about immersing herself in hands-on engineering and tuning out the rest of the world. These days, she didn't get to do it anywhere near as often as she would like and she wanted to make the most of the opportunity.

That was why, when the red phone on the wall rang, she ignored it. Well, she tried to ignore it, but then it rang again and by then her flow had been thoroughly interrupted. She grumbled to herself as she tore off her safety glasses and chucked her tools down on the workbench before she stalked malcontentedly across the room to wrench the phone out of its cradle.

"Hello, Lena Luthor speaking," the CEO answered, her tone sharp enough to cut glass.

"M-Ms. Luthor..." the man on the other end of the line stuttered. He must be new, because Lena didn't recognise the voice. "There's a... um... very insistent Supergirl here and she's, um... demanding to see you."

Oh?

"Let her through."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I have this headcanon that Lena is a total closet-petrolhead because she's all into engineering, right? She and Alex have definitely argued about the relative advantages of cars vs. motorbikes at some point. Nobody will convince me otherwise lmao.


	4. First, Sticky Buns

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh look! A conversation happens! 
> 
> I definitely could work on this more but I'm not, so here it is.

Kara was flying a routine patrol over the city when she inadvertently strayed into the vicinity of L-Corp and what she heard set her teeth on edge. There was the unmistakable pattern of Lena's heart beat thrumming away on the 13th floor. How many Rao-damn times was she going to have to tell that woman to take a freaking day off?! The fact Lena was working on a Sunday, when Kara knew she'd already worked Saturday after pulling a traditional five day week, made the Kryptonian irrationally angry. Lena's utter neglect of self-care was infuriating.

If she'd been in a more logical frame of mind she could have accepted that, given how she'd been ignoring Lena for going on 30 hours now, it wasn't really her place to pass judgement on her friend's life choices. As it was though, she plummeted out of the sky at twice terminal velocity, slowing at just the last second so she didn't smash a crater into the pavement outside L-Corp. She rose to her feet and strode furiously towards the building with her cape billowing ominously behind her, ignoring the gasps from surrounding civilians. She marched into the lobby and went to breeze over to the elevators until an "um... excuse me ma'am!" from the man behind the security desk reminded her that she wasn't Kara Danvers right now and Supergirl didn't have unrestricted access to Lena's office. She growled to herself and abruptly changed course, prowling over to the security guard who practically quivered as she approached.

"I need to see Ms. Luthor," Kara commanded with her hands on her hips and a slight scowl on her face. If she hadn't been seeing red she might have noticed that the man with Adrian on his name badge was hopelessly intimidated.

"Oh, um... Do you have an appointment?" he squeaked, his voice half an octave higher than usual.

Kara's scowl deepened.

"Do I need an appointment?"

"Well, normal protocol would say yes..." said Adrian tentatively, not wanting to provoke the strongest woman on the planet but also not wanting to break the rules and get fired on his third shift.

Kara cocked her head to the side and drilled the poor guy with a menacing stare. He never stood a chance.

"I could, um, ring upstairs for you and check if Ms. Luthor is available?" Adrian offered, swallowing nervously.

"Perfect."

The security guard dialled the extension for the CEO's office with shaking fingers under Kara's watchful eye and as the phone rang and rang without an answer, he broke out in a cold sweat. When the line went dead he nearly had a conniption.

"It, um... nobody picked up..." he said the timidly, cowering back into his chair as Supergirl narrowed her eyes.

"Where did you call?"

"Um... Ms. Luthor's office?"

"She's not in her office, she's in research and development," Kara prompted tetchily. Lena had shown her around the R&D lab on the 13th floor during one of their lunch dates at L-Corp and the Kryptonian had no doubt that was where she was.

"Oh, um..." Adrian mumbled to himself as he pulled out the folder of extension numbers from his top drawer and flicked through the sleeves until he found the page for R&D. Kara tried her hardest to reign in her frustration at the man who wasn't actually doing anything wrong but he was just so slow and she was so impatient. She almost regretted her decision to avoid property damage by using the front doors instead of just smashing through the 13th floor windows.

After an interminably long time the security guard finally dialled the right extension and his eyes darted anxiously from side to side as he waited for the CEO to answer. When that line also clicked dead he was really starting to think that taking this job had been a bad idea. He should've known that working security for a company as prone to drama as L-Corp was never going to end well. He licked his lips skittishly, then tried to break the news to Supergirl.

"There was, um, still no answer."

"Call again," was Kara's instantaneous reply and it was clear she wouldn't accept any other course of action. She could damn well hear Lena in that damn lab and she wasn't leaving until the CEO picked up the damn phone. Enough seconds had stretched on that Kara knew the call was about to ring out when relief washed over Adrian's face and she heard Lena's voice crackle out of the speaker.

"Hello, Lena Luthor speaking."

Lena sounded pissed. Not openly pissed, but that professionally icy kind of pissed that Kara had become so accustomed to when she worked for Cat Grant.

"M-Ms Luthor... There's a... um... very insistent Supergirl here and she's, um... demanding to see you."

Poor Adrian sounded borderline petrified and now that some of the adrenaline was draining out of her system, Kara suddenly felt bad for the guy. Sometimes she forgot that people could find Supergirl a little terrifying when she stormed in all serious and... Supergirl-y.

"I-I'll send her up," Adrian said, sounding like he couldn't wait to get Lena off the phone and Supergirl out of his lobby.

"You can, um, go," he then said, as soon as the CEO hung up.

Kara broke into a wide smile and Adrian got emotional whiplash from the superhero's sudden and drastic change in demeanour.

"Great, thanks. You're doing a great job..." Kara offered, pausing to glance at the name on the security guard's chest. "Adrian. Keep up the good work."

And then she was gone, zipping over to the lifts in a flash of blue and red. But, Adrian thought, maybe this job wasn't so bad after all.

* * *

Kara did not enjoy waiting for the elevator. Kara did not enjoy waiting in the elevator either, even though L-Corp had those fancy Mitsubishi ones that could travel nearly 800ft in a minute. Flying still would've been faster, even if she had to punch holes through floors 2-12. She doubted Lena would appreciate it if she destroyed the structural integrity of her building though, so she waited. Discontentedly.

45 seconds shouldn't have felt like 45 years but they did.

* * *

It wasn't until she was walking down fluorescently lit corridors, through door after mysteriously unlocked door, that mild panic set in.

(Kara couldn't know that as soon as Lena had dropped the phone back into its cradle she had hurried over to the keypad on the wall and punched in the code to release all the security doors between the lifts and the lab. She'd seen an insistent Supergirl before and she wasn't interested in having all her $9000 per unit doors ripped off their very expensive hinges.)

Now that she wasn't running purely on impulse and anger, Kara realised that she didn't have a clue what she was planning on doing.

What had she ever been planning on doing?! Marching in, dragging Lena out by the ear and forcing her to relax? Yeah, that would go down well.

Sometimes she wished she was better at thinking things through.

This entire weekend had been one disaster after another that she hadn't thought through.

Unfortunately for her, she spent so long dwelling on everything she'd done wrong that by the time she reached the right lab door she was a lot more freaked out but had no more ideas of what to say.

* * *

The CEO was packing what looked like a welding torch away into a case when Supergirl burst into the room and, for the second time in three days, Kara's brain short-circuited at the sight of Lena Luthor. She was wearing a lab coat and honestly it was sparking all sorts of fantasies that Kara hadn't considered before. Unfortunately, the distraction was the last thing she needed when her cognitive functioning was already questionable.

Lena snapped the case closed and then turned to regard Kara coolly across the 12ft that separated them.

"Supergirl," was her pointed greeting, as she stood with her chin high and her posture visibly stiff.

There were so many things Kara could have said, so what came out of her mouth?

"I've been avoiding you."

* * *

Lena quirked a skeptical eyebrow at that. She hadn't been expecting Kara to just admit it like that, especially not in full Supergirl regalia. It was nice though, not having to pretend that she didn't know exactly who she was talking to.

"I noticed," she eventually replied succinctly, her tone a little harsh and Kara winced, anxiously pulling her bottom lip between her teeth.

"I'm sorry," the Kryptonian offered, taking a short step forward. Her contrition was clearly written all over her and honestly, Lena couldn't be bothered punishing her. It would take more energy to stay mad at those puppy eyes than it would to just let it go. Plus, if she drunkenly told a someone she wanted to kiss them, she'd probably want to avoid them like the plague the next day too so it's not like she couldn't understand.

"Okay."

"Okay?" Kara questioned nervously, fidgeting with the hem of her skirt which was an entertainingly Kara mannerism to see on Supergirl.

"I forgive you," Lena elaborated and Kara's mouth curled into a relieved smile. The Kryptonian been expecting this conversation to be much harder than it had been and its ease had thrown her off course. Not that she had much of a course to begin with. She was floundering around, rummaging through her mind for something intelligent to say when Lena spoke again.

"I haven't had lunch and you're always hungry, so shall we go eat?"

Kara's relieved smile grew into an ear to ear grin at the suggestion of food. The way Lena indulged Kara's appetite was one of the things she loved about her.

"You always know the right thing to say, don't you?"

"That's debatable," Lena countered with a laugh as she brushed past the superhero, pulling off her lab coat to hang it back in its cupboard. Kara almost asked her to leave it on, but she wasn't actually that forward.

"Can I talk you into pizza?" she tried, knowing she was pushing her luck given Lena's preference for food that she claimed held 'nutritional value', but the reporter was playing the long game here.

"No," came the CEOs expected reply and that's when Kara pounced.

"Fine, we can get something with fresh vegetables but only if you come outside with me and take the rest of the day off."

Lena Luthor was a smart woman and she knew her best friend well so, when she crossed her arms over her chest and tilted her head as she appraised the Kryptonian, Kara knew she'd been caught.

"Why, exactly, did you come here today?" Lena probed, her tone more amused than accusatory. Kara looked down at the floor and scuffed the toe of her boot against the linoleum before answering.

"I heard you working," she finally admitted.

"You  _heard_  me working?"

"Yeah, y'know, super-hearing," Kara explained, gesturing loosely at her ears and Lena narrowed her eyes because there was clearly more to this story, but she chose not to push.

"I was really mad at you," Kara continued, looking back down at the floor, "for working on a Sunday."

"So what," Lena prompted, her eyes twinkling with mirth, "you came here to tell me off?"

"Yeah, maybe, I don't know... something like that? I forgot that I wasn't talking to you," Kara confessed indecisively and Lena openly laughed at her.

"Like how you forgot you hadn't actually told me you're Supergirl?"

"Oh. Rao. Yeah, like that," Kara replied, cringing at the memories of that night. "I'm sorry by the way. I wanted to tell you but I didn't want to tell you like... that."

"Don't worry about it," Lena said with a chuckle as she moved over to the keypad to re-engage the security doors. "Although I have to say, Kara Danvers drunk was quite the experience."

"Oh Rao," Kara repeated, burying her face in her hands, her next words muffled by her palms. "I can't talk about this without sticky buns."

"Noonan's?" Lena proposed, biting the inside of her cheek so she would stop laughing.

"Yeah," Kara mumbled, still talking into her hands.

"Do you want to get changed first?" the CEO asked, raising her eyebrows at the supersuit.

"Oh," said Kara, finally emerging from behind her hands. "Yeah, I should probably do that."

Lena shook her head affectionately and pushed open the lab door.

"I'll meet you outside in ten?"

Kara wouldn't need ten minutes but she agreed anyway.

* * *

9 minutes later she was standing outside L-Corp, waiting for Lena. She'd flown to her apartment in a dash over a minute then spent two minutes choosing clothes (grey jeans and a pale blue sweater - very librarian chic as Ms. Grant would call it). She used four minutes to give herself a pep talk in her bathroom mirror and then she flew back before spending 10 seconds getting changed out of sight. The walk around to the front of Lena's building took another minute and now here she was.

On the return flight, before her glasses had muted her hearing, she'd listened judgementally to Lena's heartbeat ticking away in her office. The CEO took being a pathological workaholic to another level.

It was another two minutes before Lena exited L-Corp and crept up beside Kara who'd disappeared away with the fairies.

"You ready?" she asked, startling the reporter out of her reverie.

"Oh! Yes!"

Kara cringed at herself internally. Her pep talk about being a normal, articulate humanoid being obviously hadn't done much good, but Lena was smiling that soft, amused smile at her so maybe it wasn't so bad.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay I know I'm kind of leaving you hanging but the conclusion is coming soon, I swear


	5. Sometimes, You Just Gotta Kiss The Girl

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And here it is! The conclusion - delivered on schedule.

The short walk to Noonan's passed in relatively comfortable silence. As soon as they entered the joint, Kara's eyes went longingly to the sticky buns in the cabinet and Lena smirked. She couldn't help but wonder whether the Kryptonian's appetite for activities other than eating was similarly insatiable.

"Get as many as you want, it's on me," she said, tapping Kara on the shoulder because she knew words alone wouldn't be enough to draw the reporter's attention away from the bread-y deliciousness.

"Seriously?" Kara squeaked, spinning to face the CEO with comically wide eyes, and Lena held back a laugh. She didn't know when Kara's consistent surprise at being bought food would stop being funny. And maybe a little offensive, if she thought about it too hard, because she was literally a billionaire and Kara was a junior reporter at a company not known for its generous salaries. What sort of person would she be if she didn't pick up the lunch tab?

Kara excitedly grabbed a full half dozen of buns while Lena ordered herself the legendary Noonan's snapper. You could go to a 5 star restaurant, pay 4 times the price and the fish still wouldn't be as good as it was here. Lena knew because she'd done it.

It took three people (Kara, Lena and Alizé the waitress) to move all of Kara's food over to their quiet corner, removed from prying ears. As soon as they sat down, Kara twitchily arranged her six sticky buns into a line in front of her and then couldn't stop fidgeting with the plates. Her fingers were itching to shove a bun in her mouth already, even though Lena didn't have her lunch yet, but everything she'd been taught about human social norms told her that would be improper.

The CEO left her to stew for a few moments before putting Kara out of her misery.

"Just eat. You're going to wear a hole in the table if you keep spinning that plate around."

"You sure?" the Kryptonian asked, unable to believe her good luck.

Lena barely got out the full syllable of her "yes" before Kara filled her mouth with doughy goodness.

"Hungry, are you?" she teased after watching in silent wonderment as the woman across the table inhaled a bun and a half in no time flat.

"Hey!" Kara protested defensively, after a huge gulp of a swallow. "I had a small lunch!"

"So that would be two medium pizzas instead of two large, then?"

"Yes," Kara admitted after she finished bun number two.

"Actually?"

"Yes."

"Then why did you want to get more pizza?"

"There's no such thing as too much pizza."

And then Kara started bun number three.

"You know, you could make a living as a competitive eater," Lena said as the waiter lay her snapper down in front of her.

"Ooh, I never thought of that," the reporter exclaimed. "Do you think aliens are allowed to enter?"

"Probably not," Lena said, cutting into her fish. "But you're human, right?"

The CEO winked and that's when Kara remembered they were in public. She often forgot important details like that around Lena. She was very distracting.

Kara covered her faux-pas by moving onto her fourth sticky bun.

"But anyway," Lena continued, gesturing at Kara's empty plates with her fork in an unrefined and unladylike move that would have horrified Lillian, "are you now sufficiently sugared to tell me why you were drunk on Friday?"

Kara took an enormous and nervous bite of her fourth bun as a delay tactic but she could only chew for so long before it would get suspicious.

"Pretty sure I told you why I was drunk," she finally muttered, as though mumbling would lessen the intensity of what she was reminding Lena about. For her part, the CEO thoughtfully finished chewing her own mouthful and gazed intently at the reporter like Kara was a complicated maths problem she needed to figure out.

"So you meant what you said, then?" she eventually asked, before skilfully twisting a wilted green around her fork.

"Yes," Kara confirmed quietly, staring anywhere but at Lena and stuffing a fifth sticky bun between her teeth. It was getting to the point where she thought that even she might manage to put on a pound or two with all the comfort eating she was doing.

The Kryptonian could practically hear Lena appraising her across the table before she spoke.

"Good," the CEO said crisply after a moment of deliberation, before brandishing her fork at Kara. "Can I tempt you with some arugula?"

Kara was baffled by the change of topic. Surely there was more to be discussed?! But as Lena waved the horrible bit of cooked lettuce at her, it was clear that the executive wasn't in the mood for that conversation right now so Kara addressed the new, unpleasant subject matter instead.

"Not even if you paid me," she said, sniffing haughtily.

"What if I offered you a million dollars?" Lena asked, inching the fork towards Kara who shrunk back in her chair to escape it.

"Not even then. My integrity is not for sale," the reporter said in an admirably powerful tone for a woman who was cowering away from a vegetable.

"And your integrity requires you to reject arugula?" Lena inquired mockingly, lifting a skeptical eyebrow to emphasise her point.

"Absolutely," Kara insisted. "How could I remain true to myself and my values if I put myself through such a damaging experience purely for financial gain?"

And with that, Kara won. Lena cracked and laughed as she popped the perfectly seasoned leaf into her mouth, removing the threat from Kara's vicinity. The Kryptonian practically breathed a sigh of relief and chomped down on her second to last bun to cleanse her mind of the thought of dark greens.

"Anyway," Kara said, moving on from the arugula bribery debate of 2017, "if you're not with me, what will you be doing after this?"

"Uhh.." Lena started ineloquently, the question taking her by surprise. "Relaxing?"

Kara wasn't buying it and she chose to just stare disbelievingly until Lena gave her an honest answer.

"Okay, fine," the CEO conceded, rolling her neck from side to side, "I have end-of-quarter reports I want finished by Wednesday."

"Well, it's settled then," Kara announced with finality. "You're coming home with me."

There was a pause where Lena looked at her indecipherably and then Kara realised what she said. She felt a flush blooming across her cheeks and she tried to cover her awkward cough by chugging water, except she managed to slop some down her front which only intensified her blushing. The reporter was madly dabbing at her sweater with a napkin when Lena next spoke.

"I'd love to go home with you," she said, her tone light and lilting, which did nothing to help the state of Kara's blush. In fact, it made her drop her napkin. Then she loudly elbowed the chair next to her when she bent down to pick it up so, by the time she emerged from under the table, her cheeks burned so fiercely they could probably be used as a stove in the Noonan's kitchen.

Lena was looking at her with her lip caught between her teeth and that wasn't helping Kara's face return to its normal shade either. She was actually pretty sure the flush was now creeping down her neck. How smooth.

"Do you know what now makes a lot of sense?" the CEO stage-whispered conspiratorily, leaning forward slightly and pausing for effect. "Why Supergirl crashes into buildings so often."

Kara let out a strangled squawk of indignation as Lena laughed and ducked to the side to avoid the pecan thrown at her by an offended Kryptonian.

"That's..." Kara tried to retort, scouring her brain for a witty comeback, "...Rude!"

Okay, so less witty and more elementary school playground but it was something.

"Oh you have no idea how rude I can be," Lena said with a quick wink.

And then Kara forgot how to breathe. Sometimes she thought that the CEO's flirtatious inclinations would be the death of her.

"Am I ever going to find out?" Kara shot back a few seconds later, once she figured out how to inhale.

"Maybe," Lena replied with an infuriatingly attractive smirk playing across her lips before she called for the cheque.

* * *

Lena knew she was being mean. It wasn't really deliberate, it was just that she found herself in an extremely unexpected situation. Over the weekend she'd thoroughly smothered any hope that had tried to grow after Friday but now Kara had set it alight like a spark in a tinderbox and Lena didn't know what to do.

The reporter was essentially and repeatedly offering Lena everything she wanted on a verbal platter. All she had to do was reach out and grab it but she didn't know how. Well, that wasn't strictly true. She could think of an infinite variety of things she could say, but she couldn't make any of them come out of her mouth. So, she kept leaving Kara hanging.

She did feel bad about it. If their positions were reversed, it would be killing her but she couldn't seem to help herself.

She sighed internally at her interpersonal incompetence and signed away their lunch bill, leaving a $350 tip just because she could, while watching out the corner of her eye as Kara shovelled down her final sticky bun. That woman really was the most astonishing eating machine Lena had ever seen.

"So..." the CEO began after a minute's silence, to distract herself from the way Kara was licking icing off her fingers. "Since you're apparently the boss today, where to next?"

"When's the last time you watched a movie?" the reporter asked, before sucking a last bit of icing off her thumb in a move that sent Lena's mind straight to the gutter. Or gay to the gutter, as the case may be.

"Er..." she hesitated, knowing Kara wouldn't approve of her answer. "When you roped me into that Harry Potter marathon?"

"Lena!" the Kryptonian exclaimed. She was scandalised, as predicted. "That was two months ago! And excuse me!  _'Roped in'_? You loved it!"

"It was fun," Lena conceded, tipping her head in agreement.

"You work too hard," Kara admonished with a glare, but the look lacked bite.

"Mm, so you've said." It was an oft-repeated refrain between the two of them.

"You need to have more fun," Kara declared and Lena's eyebrows climbed up her forehead at the comment. "One day I'm going to -"

"Show me how to 'have more fun'?"

The CEO knew she was being terrible but she couldn't resist.

"If you'll let me," Kara rejoined and Lena's eyebrows twitched again. "But for now, you're coming with me and we're watching Miss Congeniality."

" _Miss Congeniality?_ "

"I'm the boss, remember?" Kara said, proudly poking herself in the chest.

"I suppose I did agree to that," the CEO sighed as the reporter sprung to her feet and skipped around the table to tug Lena out of her chair.

"Don't worry," Kara offered reassuringly as Lena groaned and got up. "You'll love it."

Thanks to her glasses, the Kryptonian didn't hear Lena's skeptical "uh huh," as they trailed out through the cafe.

Once they made it outside into the hustle and bustle on the sidewalk, Lena stepped over to the curb and hailed a cab. She could've called her driver but there was something so comfortably normal about taking a taxi, especially with Kara to chat to in the back seat.

They largely made small talk on the ride to the reporter's loft and Lena took the opportunity to tease her about how she now understood why Kara couldn't find her way around a wine list, even with a map.

(Kara had once confessed that she had assumed Cabernet Sauvignon was a bad wine because Cabernet looked like cabinet. She blamed Alex for being a beer and liquor woman who never taught her alien sister about wine.)

It was nice, it was relaxed, it was easy. Or, it should have been except Lena had a problem and that problem was Kara looking so impossibly gorgeous that she just wanted to lean across the car and kiss her senseless. Which would technically have been an option if she'd managed to force air over her vocal cords and move her lips to form the words 'I like you too' but that still hadn't happened.

It was a vexing predicament, and it was distracting. It was so distracting that Lena had to ask Kara to repeat herself more than once because she'd been so busy staring at the reporter and so lost in thought that she hadn't heard what Kara had said.

She was having another distractible moment when the cab pulled up outside Kara's building and the Kryptonian had to remind her to get out of the car.

* * *

Lena was being weird. She'd been weird the whole cab journey and she was still being weird as she rode with Kara in the elevator up to the reporter's floor. The CEO was one of the sharpest people Kara knew. She was engaged, inquisitive, observant and maintained a necessarily constant awareness of her surroundings (given how often people tried to kill her). That's what made it so strange to see her so disconnected. Lena had spaced out more times in the last 20 minutes than she had in the entire rest of their friendship combined, and honestly, Kara was starting to worry.

As the crotchety old elevator creaked up six floors in the same amount of time Lena's lift would take to travel 60, the CEO was lost in a world of her own.

When Kara unlocked her front door, the sound of the keys rattling in the lock seemed to shake Lena back down to earth. The CEO cleared her throat unsubtly before stepping into the apartment and dropping her handbag on the floor.

"If you put popcorn in the microwave, I'll get the movie ready," is what Kara said instead of quizzing Lena on what was wrong with her. She desperately wanted to ask what was up, but she didn't want to push. 

Lena didn't reply. She just stepped into Kara's personal space and stared so intensely that the Kryptonian felt like she was being x-rayed even though Lena only had standard human vision.

Kara was opening her mouth to give in to her quizzing urges when suddenly Lena hands were fisted in the front of her sweater and she was tugging Kara forward. The reporter had so many questions but then Lena's mouth was on hers and her mind went blank.

The kiss wasn't gentle. It was searing and frantic and better (albeit different) than any first kiss Kara had ever imagined because it was real but then, all too soon, Lena was gone.

Kara's breath caught in her throat as she looked at the woman in front of her and her already racing heart picked up its pace. Lena's hands were still twisted in the blue fabric of Kara's sweater as her chest heaved beneath black cotton. Her face was framed by stray tendrils of hair that had escaped her bun when Kara's fingers had threaded through raven locks. She was _beautiful_  but when her eyes met Kara's, the Kryptonian saw panic written in pale emerald and she could feel the pulse pounding anxiously beneath her palms where they rested on the side of the CEO's neck. Lena was a little bit terrified.

"I'm sor-" she tried to apologise but Kara cut her off by trapping her lips in another, more sedate kiss as she languidly trailed her hands over the tops of the Lena's shoulders.

The second time they separated, the panic in Lena's eyes was gone, replaced with a humorous warmth.

"I'm not normally so impulsive," she said before staring at her hands, suddenly aware of exactly what they were dangerously close to on Kara's chest. Colour crept into her cheeks and she quickly released her iron grip on Kara's sweater, awkwardly trying to smooth the wrinkled material before twining her hands together in front of her.

"Maybe you should be impulsive more often," Kara replied, with a laugh barely suppressed beneath her words.

"You reckon?" Lena asked, imbued with enough bravery to reach out and curl her fingers around the reporter's hips.

"Mhmm."

And then the rest of the reporter's hum was swallowed when Lena leaned into a third kiss and, as the CEO's lips curled into a smile against hers, Kara decided that if she had to spend the rest of forever kissing Lena then she'd be pretty happy with life.

"So does this mean you want to kiss me too?" she asked, once the CEO pulled back and smirked at her.

"What do you think?" Lena countered, cocking her head to the side and lifting her chin as she raised an eyebrow.

"Mm, I'm not sure," the reporter said, stroking her thumbs along the column of Lena's neck.

"Have I been too ambiguous?"

Lena's face was was as inch from hers and Kara's gaze flicked rapidly between the CEO's eyes and her lips.

"Definitely."

She was so sure that Lena was going to close the minuscule distance between them that she bit her lip in anticipation but then Lena's mouth was bypassing hers and the CEO was whispering in her ear.

"I want to kiss you too. All the time."

Lena dropped a fleeting kiss on her cheek and Kara grinned - a full ear-to-ear, face splitting smile that made her jaw ache but she didn't care.

"So, Miss Congeniality then?" Lena offered, smiling back at her.

"Yes!" Kara exclaimed enthusiastically, clapping her hands as the CEO reluctantly relinquished her hold on the reporter's hips.

"I'll get the popcorn?"

"Yes, and I'll do the... you know."

Kara waved her hand in the general direction of the TV and okay, so maybe her brain wasn't firing on all cylinders quite yet but it didn't matter because Lena was smiling at her and apparently they were best friends who kissed now.

That's why, when the popcorn seemed to be taking three times as long as it should, Kara snuck into the kitchen, wrapped her arms around Lena's waist and pressed a kiss below her ear. Just because she could.

(The popcorn had taken so long because Lena first felt the need to clean up her smudged lipstick using her reflection in the microwave door and then she'd pulled the appliance out from the wall to check its voltage before choosing how long to put the bag in for. It was all very Lena and Kara couldn't resist kissing her for it, which promptly undid all the lipstick correction work.)

There was so much that still needed to be talked about but for now, both women were content to curl around each other under Kara's favourite throw and watch Gracie Hart do her thing.

And okay, so maybe they missed parts of the movie because they got distracted making out at least once (*cough* four times), but Lena did love it. The film and the making out.

* * *

It wasn't revealed that Lena already knew Kara was Supergirl until she was at the DEO on Tuesday, signing the enormous stack of NDA papers.

"I told you so!" Alex crowed while sending a quiet prayer of thanks to Sappho for saving her from vegan lasagna.

"I'm sorry," Lena said as an appalled Kara hissed and spluttered in her displeasure. "Your disguise is just glasses and a ponytail and I have functioning eyesight."

"You wear contacts," Kara retorted huffily and Lena chuckled at her.

"Yes, exactly. I can see so long as I use appropriate corrective lenses."

Kara let it drop after that but not before spitting out a deeply aggrieved sigh.

Lena had to thoroughly stroke the superhero's _ego_ when they got back to her penthouse that evening to get herself out of the metaphorical dog-box. Not to brag, but she did an excellent job and Kara was definitely back to singing her praises by the time her work was done.

* * *

Kara and Lena were keeping their new relationship on the down-low (and it was a relationship, they'd clarified after two weeks, because friends definitely didn't do what they were doing to each other) until Kara slipped up one game night about a month in.

The reporter already wasn't being subtle, what with the way she was half sitting in her girlfriend's lap, but the Super-friends-and-family were used to the two of them being affectionate. But then the CEO killed the pile in Shithead right before Kara would've had to pick up all thirty-odd cards and the Kryptonian gratefully laid one right onto Lena's very surprised lips.

A veritable cacophony broke out in response.

"What?!" Winn squeaked, sounding like he'd inhaled helium.

"Are you fucking kidding me?!" Alex practically growled.

"Get it Little Danvers!" Maggie hollered with a loud whistle. "And pay up Big Danvers!"

"Are you calling me fat?" Alex asked accusingly, a scowl furrowing up her forehead.

"Never," the detective promised as the lovebirds across the room broke apart to see Alex digging into her bag for her wallet.

"Were you betting on us?!" a shocked Kara asked as Winn stared at them with his eyes almost bugging out of his head.

"I don't know why you're surprised," Lena muttered from behind her as Maggie nodded smugly.

"I've only got 60 on me," Alex said resentfully, holding out three crumpled twenties for her girlfriend to collect.

"I'll write your debt off for 50 if you eat my lasagna," Maggie offered and Alex made exaggerated gagging sounds in response.

"I would rather run out to an ATM this very second than eat a lentil abomination masquerading as an Italian classic."

"That's an evocative description," Lena laughed over Kara's shoulder. "It's really not that bad."

"Of course you would say that," Kara scoffed and the Danvers sisters shared a knowing (and long-suffering) look over the coffee table.

Lena replied by prodding Kara in the back for her insolence as Maggie stuffed Alex's money into her pocket and Winn just kept staring, utterly bewildered by this whole turn of events.

"So," Maggie said, once the cash was safely ensconced in her jeans, "when and how did you two finally get your shit together?"

"Well, it's a funny story actually," Lena began, smiling as Kara hid her hid her blushing face behind a cushion. "Remember when Kara got drunk?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to everyone who made it this far. It was fun to write, I hope it was fun to read.

**Author's Note:**

> on tumblr @gramingo


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